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10 ancient texting traumas that are now a thing of the past

The prehistoric times before WhatsApp.

THESE DAYS IT’S all Whatsapp! this, Facebook messenger that. What happened to the days of simple SMS?

The days we remember fondly, before we could send graphics or connect to wifi.

1. Your keypad was like this

500px-Telephone-keypad.svg Source: Wikimedia

2. WB followed every text

How else would someone KNOW to ‘write back’?

wbtext

3. Chain messages must be forwarded on

Only heartless cretins or those who wanted a ghostly child to attack them at night would write it off as a chain text. If you didn’t get the rose back, you could say goodbye to your friendship.

rosetext

To make matters worse, they had to be sent one-by-one. No fancy group messages here!

cell-phone Source: HeatherBreitkreuz

4. Scroll down messages were the greatest joy

A constant cause for surprise. Of course, then the harrowing decision of which ones to save in your inbox came into play.

scrollytext

5. Finding the holy grail of free online messaging

Wasting 20c credit on a text? No more! However, there’s always the need to send a follow-up text to check if they got it.

freetext

6. Graphic smilies were but a dream

We weren’t even sure what they meant most of the time.

pl_s2_1 Source: Danadecals

You definitely got one of these on your birthday.

5669793_f260

Or the ship of fortune and good health. Lucky you.

Ship-Happy_2011-Ascii_Art-Calligram_Designer_blog Source: BlogSpot

7. The page counter was a thing of nightmares

Now with Twitter we know all about word limits but charge us for two texts if we add in a few extra exes? Raaaage. We blame this for the outbreak of hellish textspk.

textnumberscreen Source: Drippler

8. Predictive text was a million times worse than autocorrect

There was no such thing as autocorrect, and only the amateurs typed letter-by-letter. Predictive text was like that annoying person who butts in to finish your point before you get the chance to. Leave it out.

quickwrite Source: Noknok

9. Photos could only be sent as an MMS

Receiving one fuzzy photo of your mate’s cat could gobble up your entire data allowance. Disaster.

MMS Source: Wikimedia

10. Spam subscriptions and horoscopes were the internet

Subscribing to expensive WAP-based crap was the premium mobile experience.

T-Mobile-Complaint-Image-f6831c73e7a3b93ec2f1f2ccc539bae3 Source: Scambook

OH INTERNET, you’ve ruined us.

I work in a phone shop and just got this text through on a Nokia 3310 - Imgur Source: Imgur

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